Astronauts Escape Soyuz Rocket After Major Malfunction On Way To ISS

A rocket carrying two astronauts on their way to the International Space Station suffered a booster malfunction, forcing them to abort the flight and return to Earth in a “ballistic re-entry mode.”

Russian Cosmonaut Alexey Ovchinin and US astronaut Nick Hague of NASA were on board, but their lives are not in danger, according to NASA commentator Brandi Dean at NASA mission control at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.

The two crewmembers of the Russian MS-10 Soyuz capsule landed roughly 12 miles east of Dzhezkazgan, Kazakhstan, and were met by a search and recovery team, NASA said.

The malfunction on the rocket happened shortly after launch in Kazakhstan.

Dean reported that “there has been an issue with the booster and we are standing by for information as we continue to get it from the Russian flight control team. But everything seems to be fine with the crew, we had good comms with them and they are OK.”

“That means the crew will not be going to the International Space Station today. Instead, they will be taking a sharp land coming back to Earth. Search and rescue crews are always pre-staged in the event that something like this does happen.”

The Soyuz rocket had taken off at about 04:40 Eastern time (GMT-4; 2:40 p.m. local time) for a six-hour flight to the ISS.

Live television views from inside the crew module showed Ovchinin and Hague monitoring cockpit displays as the rocket accelerated away from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

The four strap-on boosters were jettisoned shortly after liftoff, as per procedure, and the capsule was being propelled under the power of its second stage core booster when the mishap occurred, triggering an emergency abort.